Archived News:

Monday, Oct 25, 2010

Telltale Games announces release plans for Back to the Future: The Game, saying the first of five game episodes based on the science fiction movie trilogy will launch in December for Windows and OS X, and that PS3 and iPad versions will follow at some point after that. Telltale Games is now accepting pre-orders for the series, which will earn the player a free copy of Puzzle Agent, and for each preorder of the series on PC and Mac from telltalegames.com, they will also donate $1.00 to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. Here's word on the series: "Picking up shortly after the events of the third Back to the Future film, Marty and Doc embark on a completely new cinematic time-travel adventure. The story unfolds across five exciting episodes, with a new installment releasing each month. Telltale is creating the game in collaboration with Universal Partnerships & Licensing and film series’ co-creator/co-writer Bob Gale. The games will release soon after the Blu-ray debut and DVD release of the Back to the Future 25th Anniversary Trilogy on October 26, featuring all-new restorations of the classic films."

Massively notes that the automatic patch utility for All Points Bulletin offers an interesting update about the defunct MMOFPS today, saying: "It's looking like there might be light at the end of the tunnel for APB. The end of the administration process is apparently close and there appears to be a buyer for the game." They also point out this was retweeted by Ben Bateman, and later note that he now works for Codemasters, prompting them to speculate that the game might now be in the hands of Codies. Bateman later tweets a clarification suggesting that this is not the case, using his 140 characters or less to say: "I now work for Codemasters so I'm out of the loop. I didn't update the patch notes. Only the admins can confirm anything."

Steam's Civilization V page announces the release of the Mongol Pack for Sid Meier's Civilization V, adding Genghis Khan and his horde to the turn-based strategy sequel. This offers the chance to: "Ride with Genghis Khan and his Mongol horsemen to establish the largest continuous land empire ever seen. Lead your civilization from humble beginnings on the steppes of Asia until all under heaven trembles at the might of your nation." They also offer sales of the Civilization V Babylon Pack, which was included for free with the Civilization V Digital Deluxe Edition. The price on this is $4.99 USD, and here's word: "Previously available exclusively as part of the Digital Deluxe Edition, the Babylonian Civilization Pack and their ruler, Nebuchadnezzar II (c. 630 – c. 561 B.C.), is now available as a separate download. As King of Babylon, gamers will be able to expand their empire with advanced Babylonian Bowmen to rightfully earn the title of Nebuchadnezzar the Great."

Steam now offers a new automatic version 1.0.2.5 "Call to Arms" patch for DogFighter, the aerial combat game that's currently on sale for 85% off in celebration of the new release. The new version adds a tutorial mode, new aircraft, and a dedicated server, along with bug fixes and other tweaks. The change list follows. Continue here to read the full story.

Electronic Arts Forums gave a post from DICE community manager Daniel 'zh1nt0' Matros outlining plans for upcoming changes to the PC edition of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (thanks Ant via Planet Battlefield). He says this is, "just one part of a bigger list of updates that we are going to release very soon. This update will also require server downtime." Here are the changes they are revealing:

One of the Insignia's requiring an unobtainable Bronze star for the tracer dart – requirement removed.

One of the Insignia's requiring an unobtainable Bronze star for the tracer dart – requirement removed.

Hit registration changes brought over from MOH to BC2; several bugfixes, the client<->server send rates have been increased, some of the hitboxes themselves have been changed. This will increase the accuracy of guns, but will not make much of a difference to the knife.

Removed the blue box behind the chat window.

The 2-second immunity when spawning/being revived can will now be immediately remove either by firing, zooming, or any movement (move, crouch, jump). Merely looking around will not remove the invulnerability. In essence: If a person moves, he is never invulnerable.

Speaking with Eurogamer, Blizzard's Rob Pardo has chimed in on the controversy over Valve's DOTA trademark and just-announcedDOTA 2 project, saying trying to lock down what had been the title of a Warcraft III modification "doesn't seem the right thing to do." This comes after Blizzard showed off a custom DOTA-themed StarCraft II map at BlizzCon, as Pardo says: "Our response is that they don't own the term DOTA at this point. It's something that they're filing for." Of the TM filing, Blizzard feels "a little bit of confusion, to be honest. Certainly, DOTA came out of the Blizzard community... It just seems a really strange move to us that Valve would go off and try to exclusively trademark the term considering it's something that's been freely available to us and everyone in the Warcraft III community up to this point," says Pardo. "Valve is usually so pro mod community. It's such a community company that it just seems like a really strange move to us... I really don't understand why [they would do it], to be honest."

"Nowadays the interesting things that are happening for FPS tend to be for PC, and that has a different culture and it has different styles of gameplay. Different core mechanics and semi-core mechanics," N64 GoldenEye and Perfect Dark director and producer Martin Hollis tells Computer and Video Games. "I have to admit that when I look at FPS games, I'm always looking for innovation, and I don't tend to be that excited by what people have done. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was retrograde, but there's an awful lot of things that I've seen that aren't really that new." Thanks joao.

WeMade now offers three new free-to-play browser-based MMOGs. There's Seafight offering naval combat set in the age of sail, outer space combat in DarkOrbit, and an "homage" to a successful competitor in Farmerama.

MCV offers sales charts for the UK for the week ending October 23, topped by Fallout: New Vegas. Computer and Video Games has the breakdown of the top 10 bestselling PC titles in the territory for that period:

Yesterday was one of those torture Sundays for me, as the Giants don't play until tonight, though this did provide the opportunity to better experience some of the wild happenings in yesterday's NFL games, as the unexpected seems to be the commonplace this year. Yesterday this included wackiness like the Chargers ignoring a couple of live balls laying on the turf, one linebacker scoring two TDs in one game, one defensive back picking off four passes in one game, the Steelers retaining possession of a fumble due to referee indifference, a 68 yard run by a punter, the Cleveland Browns defeating the defending Super Bowl champs for the third straight season, and the supposedly hapless Raiders ringing up 59 points on the supposedly contending Broncos. Wild stuff, and I will be happy if the wildness continues tonight, as the Cowboys are favored over the Giants, so here's hoping for an upset.